Reunions bring out the hypocrisy in me. Fundamentally I’m against them: the best thing Talking Heads and the Smiths can do to preserve their vaunted legacies is to continue not getting back together. But the reality is that most bands who aren’t the Beatles or the Clash will bid farewell at some point in their careers only to inevitably return, unless death steps in and makes it impossible. Even that hasn’t stopped the Who.

Resisting the pleasures of seeing, say, Fleetwood Mac every so many years – or, at the other end of the spectrum, witnessing Rage Against the Machine reload for another election-year attack – is to have a rock heart smaller than the Grinch’s. But what’s disappointing to the point of disgraceful is when legends revive themselves merely to get handsomely paid, then don’t fully deliver.

Such has been the case more than once in the past with Black Sabbath. Not this time.

The metal pioneers, in fierce form at Irvine’s Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, returned to Orange County on Wednesday night for the first time in 13 years, a fitting figure for a group touring behind a chart-topping album titled 13. (They next turn up Sunday in Las Vegas, then conclude this stateside leg with Tuesday’s replay at Los Angeles Sports Arena.)

The new disc, the British band’s first full-length effort featuring frontman Ozzy Osbourne since 1978’s Never Say Die!, is also its first No. 1: “It only took 45 (bleepin’) years to get there, but we got there in the end,” the vocalist noted before Sabbath played “Age of Reason,” the first of three offerings from “13” that all stood tall here alongside ever-prescient giants of the genre like “War Pigs” and “Iron Man.”

The album also comes after more than a decade of intermittent regroupings of these dark gods of sludge, the most important heavy band of its era outside of Led Zeppelin. Most revisits have involved doddering Ozzy, metal’s most loveable antihero, though guitarist Tony Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler were last seen at the former Irvine Meadows six years ago reviving the ’80s lineup of Sabbath – featuring the late, great Ronnie James Dio – under the moniker Heaven & Hell.

That night was an ear-opening reminder of how classically majestic heavy metal used to be before Metallica and Slayer (among others) launched a lasting and admittedly galvanizing thrash onslaught. Yet there really wasn’t any reason for that reunion to occur, nor was there much merit in Black Sabbath returning to San Bernardino nearly a half-dozen times to headline now-defunct Ozzfest last decade.

Now, however, they have a sense of purpose like they haven’t since the original lineup resurfaced in 1997, briefly including drummer Bill Ward, who remains on the outs with his former mates.

Back then, Sabbath served as a catalyst, helping foment (for better and worse) the nü-metal movement, with Korn, Limp Bizkit and Marilyn Manson at the forefront. Initially, their return reminded what a tremendous yet almost underground force the band had been up to that point, its influence on the just-ended grunge craze, for starters, not fully appreciated.

By the time of that last O.C. appearance, however – when KROQ held a testosterone-heavy Weenie Roast at Angel Stadium in 2000 – the bloom was off their reunion, Ozzy was about to become famous with a whole new audience via “The Osbournes,” and Black Sabbath routinely trudging through “Paranoid” felt entirely like a sell-out.

This tour, on the other hand, has renewed fire, despite the plainly evident fact that – as so often happens now that he’s 64 – Ozzy’s voice can quickly fail him, especially as a tour wears on. He acknowledged and apologized for that Wednesday night once his tone started turning croaky midway into the set, after giving all he had to a potent run of debut-album staples: a harrowing “Black Sabbath” followed by the funked-up seamlessness of “Behind the Wall of Sleep” and “N.I.B.,” both cuts that illustrate where Rage (for one) learned many of its licks.

That band’s drummer, Brad Wilk, helped anchor Sabbath in the studio for the Rick Rubin-produced 13, but for their current live outing they enlisted an ace: Tommy Clufetos, veteran of Ozzy’s solo shows as well as Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper tours. His lengthy solo at the end of “Rat Salad” wasn’t just expert, unpredictable and compelling the way John Bonham was for Zep, it also bought Ozzy some time to recoup strength. Impressively, he re-emerged heartier than when he began, roaring through “Iron Man” and finishing at a peak with another trenchant anti-war piece, “Children of the Grave,” and finally the blitzkrieg of “Paranoid.”

My lone quibble is that the show could have been a little longer. They cut “Dirty Women,” a fixture toward the end of most sets, probably to save their frontman’s voice. I wish “Sweet Leaf” were still in the mix, and suspect that some diehards would have preferred a bit more from the third and fourth Sabbath albums. (Apart from the new material, they didn’t venture beyond that point chronologically.)

Yet what Black Sabbath conveyed within 15 epic songs was such a summarization of metal matters – the plodding thunder and the power grind, the satanic overtones and the underlying hope for humanity – that it felt like standing at the center of an erupting volcano. On-again-off-again they will forever be, but when they’re together, they’re a cohesive behemoth. They remain the core from which all heavy fare flows, spewing forth dystopian sounds via Iommi’s gut-punching riffs, Butler’s grotesquely beautiful bass lines, and Ozzy’s deranged howl.

They could simply saunter through these shows and pick up fat paychecks. Instead, they seem intent on upholding their reputation as masters, with a minimum of antics from their infamous frontman. In the process, they've proven there's still no sin in reuniting – especially when this could be the last time.

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